{"id":122,"date":"2011-08-11T05:47:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-11T05:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sibha.online\/wprandom\/2011\/08\/11\/women-work-and-identity\/"},"modified":"2020-06-02T11:21:02","modified_gmt":"2020-06-02T05:51:02","slug":"women-work-and-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sibha.in\/RR\/2011\/08\/11\/women-work-and-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"Women, Work and Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> I have always wondered how the gen-next is going to handle the issues of family , work and gender-equality. About 25 years back, women still had an honorable, socially acceptable designation as \u2018housewife\u2019 or home maker\u2019. \u00a0Today, even if they call it \u2018CEO , Home Inc\u201d, there would be no takers for the title.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Women do need an identity, outside their home, just as men have always needed. Even in my 32nd year of service, I can\u2019t say enough is enough. I keep hearing \u00a0\u201cWhat do you plan to do for a second career. ?\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Read a book, ‘When\u00a0Work Doesn’t Work Anymore’ by Elizabeth Perle Mckenna. This book was written in 1997, but is just right for the social scenario in India today. It is about a successful career woman, who after 20 years of relentless pursuit of success on \u2018man\u2019s terms\u2019 realizes there was \u00a0something missing in her life despite achieving everyone of \u00a0the goals she set for herself in personal and professional sphere. She still liked her work alright, had what she calls ‘rock solid marriage’; yet this was not what she had thought her life would be like.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Just as the title is, there are a number of interesting one-liners \u00a0to describe the situation of women today. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Some examples:<\/span><\/div>\n

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\u201c women soon realized, going to work involved having to work\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cwithout the privileges or good financial rewards, work was just that – work.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201c and worse, women are faulting themselves for not being enough of what they don\u2019t even want to be\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cshe has arrived at what she calls her \u2018something gotta give period\u2019 which means either her career or her personal life is going to get smaller for the good of the other\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 The author narrates the stories of women with similar predicaments, to illustrate each point she makes. Then there is a liberal dose of <\/span>Gloria\u00a0Steinem (GS) Quotes to add weight to her case.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Today, women have entered every field, well, almost every field, and have tasted success in every field they have ventured into. But after, working for 20-30 years, in a man\u2019s world , playing by the rules set by men, there is a kind of emptiness. There is a \u00a0perceived sense of failure, which is best expressed in the words of \u00a0GS, ” If you meet a woman who’s doing wonderfully well professionally, doing\u00a0great\u00a0creative things and is completely happy with her work, but does not have the personal life she thinks she should have, she may think she is a failure. Men are the\u00a0reverse. They can have great personal lives, and think they are failures if they don’t have the job success they think they are supposed to have.”<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Another GS Quote from the book ‘ The working world remains a place built for men with\u00a0full time\u00a0wives to take care of the rest of the life’. In the present times men are also equally handicapped to\u00a0succeed\u00a0in such a working world. Talking of full time wives, the Indian scene is indeed quite confusing. There are housewives\/home makers, ladies and \u00a0working women who may be\u00a0categorized\u00a0as full time wives, part-time wives or of any shade in a broad spectrum.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Years ago, I saw a hand bill \u00a0inviting ‘housewives, working women, and ladies ‘ to join a computer training course. After some deliberation, I translated ‘housewives, working women and ladies’ to mean ‘women who work only at home, women who could work also at home and women who wouldn’t work even at home’<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The last category is possible in India , thanks to affordable domestic help. That is where the ‘CEO, Home Inc.’ steps in.<\/span>
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\nRecently I read an Indian version of similar ideas in HT <\/span>http:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/Kamla-comes-home\/Article1-719214.aspx<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The book is a good read for any woman looking to balance work life and personal life. Another quote from GS ” I still get young women in audiences, asking,’How can I combine career and family?’ I always tell them, ‘you can’t until men are asking that\u00a0question\u00a0too ‘.” Well, men \u00a0will start asking such questions , if only they are allowed to go easy on their work life, by the society, family and themselves.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 For whatever reason, men haven’t made much progress in work-family balance. At best you have the cooperative husband who is prepared to put up with cold dinners or even no dinner, cheerfully. Don’t expect him to cook or wash for the whole family. On the other side is the prickly type (no pun intended) who simply cannot accept any situation where the\u00a0woman is not at home.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Let’s say, one has decided on how much to give to one’s career, still there is a need to decide the time line. There are two schools of thought; one is to first establish yourself in your work place and then raise a family. The other is to take a break, complete your family and then get back to the rat race .<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Unfortunately, a woman’s most productive years coincide with her reproductive years as well. Oh God ! isn’t there any easy decisions at all in life?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have always wondered how the gen-next is going to handle the issues of family , work and gender-equality. About 25 years back, women still had an honorable, socially acceptable designation as \u2018housewife\u2019 or home maker\u2019. \u00a0Today, even if they call it \u2018CEO , Home Inc\u201d, there would be no takers for the title.\u00a0 \u00a0 … Continue reading “Women, Work and Identity”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-society"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sibha.in\/RR\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sibha.in\/RR\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sibha.in\/RR\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sibha.in\/RR\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sibha.in\/RR\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sibha.in\/RR\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1228,"href":"https:\/\/sibha.in\/RR\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions\/1228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sibha.in\/RR\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sibha.in\/RR\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sibha.in\/RR\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}